


Cleanest I've Been

by Kiyaar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Steve, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Body Horror, Coercion, Consent Issues, Dark, Drugs, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Tony, Sexual Violence, Suicide, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28197402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiyaar/pseuds/Kiyaar
Summary: Tony, Steve tells him, like he is delivering news about a death, and the joke is on him. You're malnourished, he starts. You're. He falters. You're bondsick.No shit, Tony says.I can still feel you, Steve says, in his softest voice. Like he is terrified.Tony considers that in the space of a second before he's floating away again.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 34
Kudos: 110
Collections: Stony's Sad Secret Santa





	Cleanest I've Been

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KandiSheek](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KandiSheek/gifts).



> I hope you like it, KandiSheek. Thanks to [redacted] for beta and cheerleading. Please heed the tags.

> So you say you want a deathbed scene, the knowledge that comes before knowledge, and you want it dirty.  
>  -Richard Siken, _A Primer for the Small Weird Loves_

Tony makes it through the infection and slams headfirst into a weak half-heat. He spends two nights alone in a fever-sweat with his hand balled up in his mouth, because he is too weak to chase even the urge to stick one of Peter Quill's grimy screwdrivers in his body to feel _better_.

He loses hours, then days. He stumbles. He says less to Nebula, and he is too weak to perceive whether or not that's hurting her. He trips and slams his head into a bulkhead. He stops moving. He stops thinking. The hunger grows until it almost stops, if he holds his breath and shuts his eyes and pretends he's dead.

He has imagined this so many times in dreams, in nightmares, in the warm circle of Steve's arms, on the cot in his workshop all alone, locked away. He has imagined this laid onto Afghanistan laid atop Siberia until the entire future looks like a black maw when he closes his eyes. He's rehearsed so many times. His existence must now defy probability.

He's sitting in a chair, probably Nebula's doing. She likes to practice her kindness on him. His limbs feel prickly and weak, deep pain and fatigue shot through his bones. He can't see his chest rising and falling in his periphery when he breathes. He is scant and he can see the stars and he feels -

He feels what little is left of the bond _go_.

He has fantasized every flavor of reconciliation. He has bargained, in the dark: anything to have the taste of Steve's skin one more time. One more moment of the softness of his voice in Tony's ear. He kept telling himself that if he willed reunion to be, then eventually it would be. That Steve would recant. That Steve would apologize. That the entire world would turn on its axis so they could be together again.

But the feeling, the echo of an echo that's almost as solid in him as the arc once was - it stills. It quiets.

Tony reaches, for the first time since he laid there in that fucking bunker freezing to death. He plucks at the string. And this time, he finds absence.

That's how he knows he's dying.

* * *

Her name is Carol and she tells him stories about faraway places with faraway names. His mind can't catch on much of it. _Stay with me, Stark_ , she says, and he is so fucking sick of hearing his last name. She's got an IV in his arm. He taps it. He doesn't even ask what's in it. He has become so soft and naive and he would let this woman do anything to him because she has a human's face and he's going to die here in the black of space instead of on his stupid useless blue planet.

He cries. He sees Nebula's dark eyes and feels her prosthetic arm on his spindly wrist and he is dimly aware that his chest feels hollow. _He smells sick_ , she tells Carol. _Why didn't he say anything._

I'm dying, he tries to explain.

It's truth enough to sate. _I waited too long_ , he doesn't say. _I am a stupid man. I loved someone I should not have loved. I believed in the wrong thing. We should have had it broken. Why didn't we have it broken._

The thing he will never say aloud: _Steve is done with me._

But he thinks it. He thinks it's and it's the indulgent choice, the choice that doesn't preserve him, the choice that quickens the flood and drowns him in the dark of space, until all he can feel is the empty and the shuddering of the craft and the quiet hiss of the oxygen mask someone is holding gently to his face.

Tony still sees space racing out in front of him every time he closes his eyes. He wanted that light – blinding, impossible - to be Steve. Even now he wants Steve to be saving him.

Carol carries him down the ramp, his head tucked under her neck. She smells like a prairie. Like a fresh day.

She's running. Tony smells grass and autumn night and dew and the river. He's home, he must be home. There are voices all around and his vision is spotty and he insists, weakly, that he can walk himself. That it's not so dire.

Someone is yelling his name, chanting it, over and over. Someone is crying about him.

There's another alpha who touches him, who he's handed off to. He doesn't smell like anything. Tony feels nothing about him.

 _Tony_ , the alpha says, and Tony starts to cry because it's him, that's Steve, that's Steve's voice. And Steve doesn't smell like anything. Not even like a stranger. Like he's been erased from Tony's page entirely, like he was never there to begin with, like he's no one.

He should have known. Light's not the same on earth as it is up in the black. Steve's been nova since the dawn of time.

* * *

You are fucking unbelievable, Nat says.

Lower your voice, says Steve.

Tony's head pounds. The resonance of her anger seeps in from the other end of the wing, makes him dizzy. Both of them are too fucking angry to be quiet; the scent of _fight_ drowns out even the antiseptic, the industrial sizing on the never-used upholstery. He opens his mouth to tell them to fight somewhere else but there's a tube in his throat and the place where Steve's bite sits on his throat feels swollen and full.

– maybe you're just not a very good spy, Steve is saying. We - he was very careful, he hedges. Nat goes up on her toes and scents him. Tony can just see the back of her body, the way she eclipses Steve's hulking, sullen self.

Enough, Steve says, and pushes her away.

You don't smell like him.

I don't hold anything, Steve tells her. You know that.

Tony tries to push himself up, but the heart monitor beeps dangerously, so he settles for twisting his body around, pressing his cheek against the handrail, letting their voices hit him sideways.

You're bonded, Nat is insisting. How did you -

This is not my secret to tell, Steve snarls. Ask Tony -

So what was I, Nat asks him. You don't have mistresses, Steve -

It was over, Steve says. It's over.

Good. Then you'll get on that fucking ship -

No.

Steve, I swear to god -

What can I do, Steve snaps. What can I do that Tony couldn't.

I don't know! Nat yells. You can _show up_ because you're on a _team -_

I am one man, Steve yells back. I'm not going.

Tony's gonna be dead soon, she hisses.

He is not, Steve snaps, and it's real yelling, Alpha yelling that would have brought Tony to his knees once upon a time. I thought he was dead, I thought I was just going to carry this around until I die, it's _over_ , what the fuck do you want me to do about Thanos anyway, what can I do that a god and whatever - Carol is - can't, Nat, I'm just _human -_

Liar, Nat tells him. Wheels up in 10. You've never been a coward a day in your life, Steve. The air behind her smells like dahlias.

I'm not going, Steve says, but the elevator is already closing.

Tony sees him, through the glass - both of his hands over his face, his forehead pressed against the wall, defeat in every line of his body.

* * *

When Tony comes to, Steve is trying to fix it.

Steve lies behind him; he's already taken that liberty. The room is dark. The beeping of the heart monitor and the tubing running from his elbow and the hot mass of Steve's bulk on his scant nothing is enough to make him feel like he's suffocating.

He's too weak to do anything about it, so he lies there and feels the soft puff of the cannula taped to his face and tries to relinquish some of his lonely terror.

I don't feel you, Tony croaks, and he shakes through it. Saying it aloud precipitates a fearful overturn in his otherwise inert body: shame and guilt and fear and over again.

 _You smell like nulls smell,_ Tony doesn't say. _You smell like nothing. Am I dead? You smell like nothing. How can you smell like nothing. You're right there. You're right here. You're touching me and I can't smell you. I can't feel you, it's like there's_ nothing _-_

Steve rocks them. He kisses the nape of Tony's neck with chapped lips and that's how Tony knows it's bad.

His heart does not beat wildly in his chest. His cock is soft against his leg. There are no chills, no rush of affection, no matching thrill from Steve.

I wanted to give you a choice, Steve says, wretched, and it's the first time Tony's heard his voice in two years. He sounds older. You didn't break the bond right, he chokes out, like he's barely holding back his own tears.

I don't think I meant to, Tony croaks.

He hopes it's enough. He doesn't know how to say that he's been busy dying while Steve has been busy cowering. _It just happened_ sounds like a lie. None of it just happened, not for either of them. He doesn't know how to tell him about the dark and the blood and the drifting without harm. He hopes Steve understands. He blinks a slow blink, enjoys the dullness the sedatives impart.

Tony, Steve tells him, like he is delivering news about a death, and the joke is on him. You're malnourished, he starts. You're. He falters. You're bondsick.

No shit, Tony says.

I can still feel you, Steve says, in his softest voice. Like he is terrified.

Tony considers that in the space of a second before he's floating away again.

Tony had plans for this. Angry speeches. Contrition. Non-engagement. Murder. Begging. Lies and fucking and destructive honesty and all of it to compensate for the fact that Tony is weak and Tony was always going to beg to keep the bond.

Justification upon justification for keeping it.

The part of him that is living in the future, that is inaccessible, wants to know what really did it. If it was Thanos. If it was the hunger. If it was the cumulative loneliness of the whole affair. If it was sealed from the moment he decided he was going to go to Siberia and _help_. The violence, maybe: of being alone, of being impaled, of being _responsible_ and failing yet again.

I thought I was dead, Tony says, and he can feel Steve's body held tense and heavy against his own.

Do you want me to try, Steve says. I will, he says, as long as it takes, I am here, if that's what you – If you want me.

It occurs to Tony, briefly, ludicrously: he has been circling the drain for so long.

Tony, Steve urges. _Do you want me?_

Steve's always been dragging that frozen mausoleum of his around. Tony picks up wood to build his own pyre. They've never been able to really open the link with the chasm between them. Steve likes to blame the serum. It's easier than an admission: complicity, love.

Tony closes his eyes and sees space spool out before him. Blessed, expansive, dark.

Tony, Steve says, holding back his Voice with everything he has.

You can try, Tony concedes.

* * *

Bruce has left instructions. It's hard to get ahold of experts at a time like this, with the world in crisis, but Steve gets someone on the phone, leaves periodically to shout without disturbing Tony.

They talk about Tony while Tony gets a month's worth of calories from a tube. They talk about every off-label solution on the market. Steve asks about surgical solutions, he asks about extant research. Steve fails to accept that his biology is unique, that the science has always been poorly understood, that a critical component to success is Tony's will to live.

Steve harbors expectations of easiness. As if the wound will heal if he can only hold it closed long enough. As if reconciliation is certain to follow.

In the end, some PhD candidate from Johns Hopkins tells Steve he has to do the mending the old-fashioned way. Tony is malnourished, gaunt, fatigued from the weight of being flinging himself into combat with that purple monster. His body can't handle anything else. Mainlining fertility drugs will send him into cardiac arrest. Bruce is gone; there's no one to supervise.

Tony is hours, maybe days away from collapsing and drawing Steve with him.

Okay, Steve whispers hysterically to himself, once he's off the phone. He moves around the room. He sheds his clothes. He smells like warm null. Okay, he says again. He washes off the masking cream with shaking hands. He drops the bottle of pills he's trying to open. He climbs in behind Tony. He rubs his hand over the bond scar on Tony's neck.

I'm gonna fix it, he soothes, his voice jagged and unsteady. I'm gonna. Tony, can I?

He touches Tony like they used to touch, strokes over his chest, over the divots the nanotech has left. Tony is too weak to even reciprocate, so he lies there and feels his own thready heartbeat and relearns exactly how emaciated he is as Steve traces his ribs.

Steve's body is smaller, ever so slightly. The masking cream lingers; Tony gets a whiff of it as Steve is propping himself on one elbow. Someone has done a shitty job cutting his hair. He has dark circles under his eyes. Tony wants to ask if he's sorry. Doesn't.

He slides one of his hands into Steve's. Slides his fingers up Steve's wrist to where -

Steve tries to pull his arm away but Tony refuses, digs his fingernails in because he is so tired of being the only one with a heart saturated with the grief of it all. He presses his fingertips against the fresh white-pink scar carved into Steve's forearm.

He should be able to get something from it. Anything. An impression, an ache, a sharp taste at the back of his throat.

What happened for you to do that, he presses. He is terrified by the one-dimensionality of speech. Steve could lie to him. Steve could say anything.

It's old, Steve says, like that makes it better. He parcels out his speech like he is working hard to contain his own explosive potential.

After Russia, Tony tries. He shivers. It feels like the wrong thing to say. Too close to an accusation.

Tony thought this would be easier. Like slipping back into an old suit. Like flying. He was so certain he could never forget what they felt like together. What Steve breathed into him.

But now. Steve is like a living ruin. Silent, stone.

Steve pulls his arm away without explanation. He gets out his cock, and Tony knows: they're not going to talk about it. He lies there like a precious bequest. Preserve at all costs. Like if Steve touches him wrong the patina will spoil. Tony feels Steve jerking himself, feels the heat of it at the small of his back. Only has a moment to process the idea that maybe he is being violated. Maybe he should care. Smells the wet salt smell of it when Steve takes a handful of it and massages it into Tony's neck, right against his glands. A trickle of it drips down his collarbone.

Steve's hand drapes over his shoulder. He rests it there, dirty. He won't make the move. Tony thinks it diminishes him, that part of his mythos is being a human that never falters.

Tony mouths at Steve's big index finger out of pity, familiarity. Fever-borne fatigue. Preservation. He brings Steve's hand to his mouth, slips his tongue out when he remembers. Tries to remember what this should feel like. Tries to savor the taste of it. Tries to convince himself he wants it. He wants to crawl in the direction of life.

But it's just come and his stomach roils after he's swallowed some of it after subsisting for so long on nothing.

Steve's hand trails down his back, tentative, lower, lower. He tries, gentle. Hopeful. But Tony is dry and he cries out and winces and can't even bring himself to feel strongly about it, one way or the other.

Steve takes his hand away like he's been burned.

 _You knew it wouldn't be that easy_ , Tony wants to tell him.

 _Coward_ , he wants to say more.

* * *

Steve's plan is just escalation. Until someone breaks. He presses their skin together and keeps his mouth on Tony's bonding scar and gently forces his own fluids into his stricken body and is as much of a gentlemen as he can be.

Tony feels like a foregone conclusion. Like Steve keeps trying to water a husk with long-rotten roots.

It's hard to be near Steve, physically. Tony has no intention of telling him how hard it is. There should be a pull, and he tries to will it into existence, draws upon their filthiest nights together, their most violent disagreements, anything to manufacture a feeling, anything to trick his brain into thinking Steve is still his. He doesn't have enough strength to reciprocate, or to climb atop Steve's hale body, so he closes his eyes and lets the dark swaddle him so he doesn't ever have to see Steve, on top of him, again.

Steve milks himself until he's audibly exhausted, until he lies quiescent at Tony's back and his breathing slows. He rests for a little, then props Tony up so he can spoon-feed him his come, one teaspoon at a time.

It takes him an hour to get the entire pouch down. It can't be more than a few ounces; Tony knows Steve's sacrificing sleep to get it. It's all but ten minutes before Tony vomits it all up over the side of the bed again.

Maybe Tony's not participating intently enough. Maybe this is truly, all on him. Maybe he doesn't want it. Maybe he's lying.

Maybe Steve is feeding him poison.

Steve leans on their practiced, failsafe, ways to soothe Tony through his half-delirium. Steve's protocol is outdated but it is an attempt at kindness. He presses Tony's face into his neck. He strokes down the nape of his neck. He laves Tony's scar with his tongue. He tells Tony that he's beautiful, that he loves his body, that he wants to live inside him.

Steve must know it's landing hollow, but he persists. He still slides himself into Tony's stiff, unyielding body, he still moves himself like it's a chore and a duty, he persists in wiping Tony's brow and tipping his fluids into Tony's panting mouth. He is so patient Tony wants to scream. He is so distant that Tony wants to die.

Without the resonance of the bond it skirts the edge of cruelty.

Steve licks at him like if he tries hard enough, he can singlehandedly coax Tony into wetness. He bites at the insides of Tony's thighs. He buries his face in Tony and Tony buries his face in the shitty hospital bedding he bought a lifetime ago and wills himself to open, to bloom again, to self-repair. If he were wearing the nanotech he knows it would erupt on his chest.

Steve goes at it until Tony is raw.

Tony touches the side of his head. Steve, he says. Tony slaps him on the temple. Steve, he says again.

Steve picks up his head, turns his tear-stained face to meet Tony's gaze.

Stop, Tony whispers. He strokes Steve's cheek. Try fucking me, he says.

Steve looks as exhausted as Tony feels. He puts a pillow under Tony's hips, arranges his feet, gently massages his genitals like he's tempering Tony's body.

Tony wonders who will be the first to give up. He wonders if they are the last, if the team is dead somewhere, if they're going to do this forever, just the two of them, until Steve goes insane or Tony withers and dies.

Steve puts his hands everywhere, gentle until he forgets to be gentle. He folds Tony like a pretzel like he does when he's in rut. He hikes Tony's gown up, pulls his ankles apart, dives in like Tony's body still belongs to him.

Tony tries to scent him, more out of muscle memory than need, but Steve's face lights up like he has been living for a breakthrough like this. He traces the line of Steve's collarbone, his strong neck, his chin glistening with Tony's own slick. He presses his face in, and Steve quivers like Tony has singlehandedly injected him with enough hope to see him through whatever he sees this as.

Anything? Steve asks, carefully neutral.

When Tony inhales, he smells the desert. He smells the dank of the cave, and the precise reek of the way he puked in his suit when he went through the wormhole and he tastes the dust on Titan when Thanos put Tony's own armor through his body.

No, Tony says. Knot me.

Steve keeps trying. Keeps moving in him. Not yet, he says. He presses his cheek to Tony's, buries his head in Tony's pillow. Tangles his hands in the sheets so they're not touching more than they need to be.

Still so terrible about lying to himself.

* * *

Don't, Tony says, after the fifth-sixth-seventh time.

He doesn't voice his discomfort. Steve had him do miserable, halting laps earlier - with a plug, no less - dragging his IV tower along, Steve's big hand splayed across the small of his back, trying not to touch as if he hasn't funneled quarts of his own fluids into Tony's body. Now he is swollen and sore where Steve pushes into him every hour and a half, bruised around his glands, his nipples raw under his grey hospital gown.

You don't want, Steve says haltingly.

I do, Tony says, and the truth of it feels like an ambush. But I've never known - I've never seen this work, Steve, I-

We're different, Steve says. I'm different.

What if it doesn't work, Tony says. What if it doesn't. I can't handle it if it doesn't, Steve, I can't do that -

Shh -

You smell like a stranger, Tony bursts. He hasn't seen Steve smile. Steve hasn't tried to make him laugh. Steve hasn't expressed love or contrition or anything beyond naked obligation. You never called, Tony presses, and there it is, all the hurts he thought he was better than. You didn't give me a single fucking indication that you gave a shit about me. You put your shield in my chest.

Tony feels jagged, unpalatable. All the things he says are slightly too mean. Too intense. Not enough.

He gets out of bed. The heart monitor beeps wildly. Steve gets his hands out, like Tony's holding a weapon and he needs to be talked down.

Tony grabs the IV stand because he's going to be standing for this. You did that, he says. I didn't make you do that, I didn't drive you to it. You did that, he whispers.

Steve says: I did that.

He doesn't say _I'm sorry_.

Tony kicks at him. Steve is strong enough to sweep him back to bed, Steve is restrained enough to ask if he wants more Percocet before he puts more of it in Tony's IV, Steve is so good. So polite. So fucking infuriating in the way he tries to make his contrition acceptable.

You're not even sorry, Tony says, and he reaches out across the bond before he realizes he's staring into space, again, there's no way for him to transmit his anger even if he wanted to. It feels like screaming all alone in a padded room. The line goes nowhere.

Steve moves haltingly, stiff and unmoored. He undresses for the fifth time today. He gets himself out, doesn't meet Tony's eyes. He pulls at his own flesh and lets his gaze drift like he'd rather look anywhere but at Tony himself. He pants.

He says. I didn't know what to say to you. So I didn't say anything at all.

All of Tony's venom comes out at once.

He can't imagine what Steve smells on him, if he's even strong enough to put out fight. He should be feeling cornered, but he feels ragged and bright and weightless for the first time in years, and he looks at Steve across the room in his dirty t-shirt with his 4-day stubble and his cock hanging out and despises him.

Tony tells him he's a fucking liar. You had a phone, he says. I thought you left me to die, he bursts. My ribcage was cracked, Steve. Do you know what that was like, after Afghanistan? Do you know what you fucking did?

Steve takes it with more grace than Tony anticipates. He hates it. He wants Steve to fight back. He wants the Steve that is a little too arrogant and a little too strong and a little too Alpha for his own good.

I felt it when you got stabbed, Steve tells him. In space.

That must have been hard for you, Tony says.

Steve turns away from him. If Tony could smell him, he knows his hackles would be up.

You're bondsick, Tony, Steve reminds him, and it is the most condescending thing Tony can fucking imagine.

I'm bondsick, but I'm not fucking stupid, Tony says. Steve is right. He feels feverish again. Steve hasn't taken his temperature in a while. His last blood sample is still running, but he'd bet money his hormones have done the opposite of stabilize.

I assumed you would break it, Steve says quietly. If that's what you wanted.

Maybe you broke it, Tony tells him, and he hopes Steve can feel even a fraction of rejection Tony has been carrying around. Maybe you splintered it when you put your shield in my fucking chest.

Steve sits in the chair that's too small for his thighs. He looks out the window. He nods to himself.

Would you like me to leave, Steve asks. If that's what you want -

You can't, Tony spits. We both know you can't.

Steve does cry, at that. Of course, he says, blank-faced and pathetic. Whatever you want.

* * *

The first time is miraculous, even for them. Tony has the scents of so many people on him by the time they even make it into bed. He's old. He has not been careful about who he's let use him. Free with affection, bombarded with heartbreak. Guilty, blown up, shredded, stitched together. And again. Alive until the day he's not.

Steve Rogers corners him in Clint Barton's guest room on a bed too small for the both of them, kicks at his feet hanging over the edge of the bed.

Are you really mad at me, Tony says, or do you just want to fuck me.

Steve has been putting out Fight for hours, ever since they pretended to be civil and chopped wood and Steve puts two fingers inside Tony's body and tests him for ripeness and Tony's world tilts on its axis.

 _This isn't how it goes these days_ , Tony tells him weakly, and Steve smells like clay, and a little like tobacco - maybe, not quite, something herby - and Tony wants to stick his fucking face in his armpit, he wants to lick every drop of sweat from Steve's body, Steve has his hand clamped over Tony's mouth and Tony doesn't even care. It's an alchemy he's never dreamed he would experience. He would walk back into that cave on his own feet if it meant he could have this forever.

Stop, Steve says, an octave below his normal register. You can't wake up the kids. Don't make the bed squeak. He puts one of his fingers shiny with Tony's slick to his lips and tastes it like it's nothing.

Tony takes things for granted. It just happens. You slide into something easy and you forget that your paradigm has already been rearranged. That when that something goes, your life will contract to fill that void. You forget that you've already made yourself smaller, the minute you've given something, anything, up.

Tony should tell him: I am a mistake.

Tony says, _God, fuck, you may as well ruin me_ and Steve sucks at his neck, he should know not to do that and he does it anyway, he does what he wants and Tony is wetter than he has ever been in his life _._ He humps at air, unrecognizable to himself. The bed creaks and Steve is so solid and he bores into Tony's body and he is rapture and he smells amazing and he says _Fuck, Tony_ and Tony says _knot me_ because he's a little bit of a whore and Steve is too noble to ever do it, but –

But Steve sinks his teeth into Tony's neck and it's so perfect he wants to die so nothing can ever ruin it.

* * *

Are you okay, Tony asks him more than once, because he is indisputably fragile, now, and Steve's sadness has always been fucking unbearable.

Steve's answers grow quieter, rarer. Like he thinks speech will break him out of his single-minded mission and he can't afford the distraction for even a second. He moves slower now. He moves like the world is an unbearable miasma through which his body must plough. His stride widens. His face remains carefully passive like he's bundling his anger and swallowing it back as soon as it bubbles up. By the end of the day he's sweating and he won't look at Tony and he sits in the chair and puts one hand over his crotch to cover up the stain where he's leaking and buries his face in the other.

He takes good care of Tony. He wipes down his skin as much as he dares without disrupting the scent layer he's been painstakingly trying to establish. He smears his come on the Synth-O patches and places them gently. He dutifully performs his 14 hours of surface contact a day. He hauls an entire fridge into the elevator from the game room. He tips bottles of water against Tony's chapped lips. He lets Tony mix his come into chocolate pudding and he does his best not to seem hurt that Tony can't keep it down unadulterated.

He floods Tony's room with light, opens the windows so Tony gets the late fall breeze coming off the river. He cultivates a space they can share without choking on their own fetid guilt. Tony mistakes it for sweetness at first, but then he notices Steve discreetly checking his phone, his brow furrowed. Steve carefully leaves the basal thermometer on the bedside table like it's coincidence, like he doesn't want to push. He does his best to remind Tony that .

He wants to know what Tony thinks about trying O-blockers. Tony tries to decide if Steve is asking him to give up. He wants to know if Tony is willing to consider IV Clomid. Just think about it, Steve says.

Sometimes Steve forgets that Tony's body is older, that he has accumulated decades of injury and trauma. That it's not always a matter of fighting.

He accepts Tony's silence.

They exist like that in the vast steel emptiness of the compound, old lovers, old ghosts.

Steve is losing his will. Tony imagines it must be exhausting, making love to a body that thinks it's already dead. Both of them nurse their hurts privately between rounds. Their collective failure to spontaneously snap back together as if no time had passed, no hurt had been exchanged is unbearable alone, doubly unbearable together.

Tony doesn't need the bond to sense his increasing desperation. Steve has always been terrible at recognizing his own ineptitude.

Steve moves in him, over him. Tony exists, raw, hanging. Testing the line: always empty, always less than an echo coming back.

* * *

Tony places himself in an imaginary future where Steve succeeds because Steve's force of will can conquer all. In this future, love saves the day. In this future, they love each other. In this future, they are more than two lonely liars clinging to each other.

He thinks it will make him feel better. He thinks of all the times he has used his body to soothe the ugly things that have always arisen between the two of them. He thinks of the most erotic things Steve has done to him. He thinks about Steve in rut. He thinks about the way Steve feels when he knots.

For all Steve's unchecked violence, he won't knot him now, when it matters most.

Do me, Tony goads, because he wants the charade to be over. He wants to prove conclusively that he is right and Steve is wrong, that Steve is foolish, lovesick man for trying. He wants Steve to fail, and he wants him to hurt for his failing, and he wants to be right about something. He wants Steve to have to sit there and take his failure instead of running away.

Knot me, Tony says, insensate, and tries to jam his body onto Steve's. He feels himself tear. He feels like he's fucking a beta with no face and no name and nothing to hurt him. He can sense Steve is alpha, barely - the knot, the timbre of his voice that awakens absolutely nothing in him, the way he buries his face in Tony's neck every 30 seconds, just to see, just to taste.

Tony, Steve says, and he's almost crying. He pulls away.

Fucking knot me, Tony snaps. You can't even knot me.

I don't want to hurt you, Steve says after a long time.

Tony punches him. Steve doesn't even lean out, just lets it happen, just lies there with his head on the same pillow and blood running out his nose.

You fucking abandoned me, Tony tells him. And I can't even smell you. I can't tell if you've been fucking someone else.

Nat, once, Steve whispers, and it's not the answer Tony wants.

So you cheated on me, Tony says. A provocation; they both know it.

Steve just _takes_ it. I thought you were dead, he offers. I thought we were over. He nods to himself.

I thought we were over, too, Tony says. And how about Barnes, Tony says.

No, says Steve. Not for a long time.

I don't believe you, he hisses.

Steve rolls on top of him, without warning, too abruptly to be tender. He traces his hand up Tony's neck. Tony flinches away when he grazes his gland area, the tenderness is unbearable - but Steve grabs his chin, tilts his head back. Presses his fingers around Tony's throat. Pushes.

Maybe you should bite me, Tony suggests, and Steve _squeezes._

It's intentionally cruel. It topples every single fantasy Tony has cultivated in his absence. Tony's eyes water with the pain of it. He looks for the affection in Steve's face and Steve looks wrong, as wrong as Tony has ever seen him.

Don't ask me that again, Steve says. Don't ask me to knot you. He puts his face right up against Tony's jaw. Tony can just barely feel his teeth, can feel his erection pressing against his own thigh.

And then he's gone. Steve pushes himself off the bed with sudden, abject disgust in his features. He looks at his hands, he looks at Tony. He reaches over his shoulder, almost absently, and then stops in his tracks. Like he's realized where he is. Who he isn't, anymore.

Fuck, Steve says, _fuck_. And then he's gone.

* * *

Steve leaves him for hours.

Tony's fever has subsided into a low-grade nuisance, but it's the only concrete marker of improvement he's noticed. He listens to the air recirculating, watches Steve do laps through his little window out on the compound, watches him stop and pick up one of the sculptures on the lawn and hurl it into the lake.

Tony feels shaky, aches more than usual. Maybe a good sign. Maybe his body is starting to respond. He wants something more than the plug in him. He tries to decide if he can make it across the room for some of Steve's reserves. He rubs at his neck, puts his fingers where Steve's fingers were. Squeezes. Closes his eyes and tries to remember Steve's scent.

Steve comes back smelling like regular sweat after his 15 mile run. He doesn't shower, just takes off his socks and shoes and presses his disgusting self up against Tony, rubs his body all over his.

You smell atrocious, Steve whispers. Like. Rancid, he gets out. You smell like you're dead already but I can feel how much you hate this and you keep saying you want it and you don't, I don't.

Now you know, says Tony. What it feels like to be lied to.

Steve doesn't like that, and a half-snarl curls out of his throat before he grits his teeth. He rucks up the back of Tony's gown, doesn't even ask about it, doesn't preface it with _is this okay_ or _I'm gonna fuck you now._ Tony still isn't slick but Steve has plenty to smooth the way, rubs his cockhead along Tony's ass, presses and presses until he's at his rim. Slides home like it's his right. Like he's been thinking about it for fifteen miles.

It's too much, too fast. Steve, Tony says, and grabs the handrail. Steve presses Tony's whole face into the hospital bed, throws one leg over Tony's hip like he's mounting, for real. Bars his arm across Tony's back. Rails him until he groans with the effort, then settles into a deep, leisurely finish.

He stays there a while. Tony feels the itch of his come trickling out. Steve must feel it, too, because he collects it with his finger and puts it on Tony's tongue.

You're still in pain, Steve says quietly, as he pulls out and replaces himself with a plug. Aren't you.

Tony hates that he can know that. That he is so open to Steve and Steve is so shut to him.

Why are you letting me, Steve says. He pumps the base of the thing idly and Tony wants to tell him to stop, to let him rest. Steve finds another stray trickle and rubs it over Tony's lips, smooths his hair back from his face.

Beats dying, Tony tells him.

Tony.

You know, you still haven't apologized, Tony says.

Steve looks at him, a fight starting in his jaw. He shakes his head, casts his gaze down. He wipes his nose. Tony feels absence when he slides out of bed. He retrieves cool cloths and new sheets and a new gown and linens for Tony. He produces sweats from somewhere.

I can't fucking believe you, Tony says, and Steve's eyes well over with furious, naked tears.

He hefts Tony into the armchair in the corner while he strips the bed. He gets stuck on a corner: he pulls it and pulls it until he rips the sheet, and then he slides down to sit on the floor and cries. He's always been an ugly crier: blotchy-faced, red-eyed, snotty as hell.

Tony has a role. They're mated. He should touch Steve's face, and kiss his eyelids, and tell him it's going to be fine. That they're going to get through this.

It's fine, Tony says.

Steve throws his bundle of linens on the floor.

You can't lie to me, Steve says, and he looks mad with it. He taps his temple like it's gone insane. I can feel how fucking scared you are, Steve says. And you're scared of me. And I have to listen to you and you tell me something and the bond tells me something else, who am I supposed to listen to, Tony -

Siberia, Tony says, for the nth time.

Steve's nostrils flare. I don't fully understand what I did wrong, Steve says, a quite storm churning just under his smooth, no-bullshit voice. Steve is paradoxical, containing of multitudes, such guile and such naked conviction in the same breath. I was protecting you. I was protecting him. Do you understand what he is to me? No. You can't. You come from the now and I come from the past, and there will always be this gulf between us and you only ever look forward, Tony, do you know what you are _–_

 _–_ I know what I am to you, Tony tells him.

Steve regards him. Really takes his time, rakes his eyes over Tony's pitiable body and the way he's spreading his legs in his gown like a whore because he's having a hot flash and the reading glasses he's holding on to with two fingers.

Do you want me to let you die, Steve asks. Is that how you wanna go? Do you want to leave me this way?

That's fucking manipulative, Tony points out. Even for you.

Steve presses his hands over his face. He looks almost contrite, almost, for just a split-second. I don't want this for us, he murmurs, but there's no accusation in it, only raw, frayed sadness.

Which don't you want more, Tony says. This? Or me, dying.

* * *

Steve pushes something in Tony's IV and it burns when it hits his vein.

Tony's skin is on fire. He tries to shift around in bed, thinks distantly of levering himself up and into the shower, and pain shoots up his spine. His pelvis burns. He fumbles one hand behind him to try and pull out the plug but it's agony to move.

Steve, he says weakly.

Steve's on hold with someone. He tucks his phone between his ear and his shoulder and sits on the edge of the bed and traces Tony's lips with one of his massive fingers. Slides the tip into Tony's mouth.

Tony pulls away, tries to wet his lips.

No, he croaks. His skin sears. Something is wrong, Steve.

Steve sticks his thumb all the way into Tony's mouth, presses his tongue down. Adds another finger. Goes deep enough to brush the back of Tony's throat. Laughs a little when he sputters and chokes. Does it again.

Looks at him with glassy eyes. _Dares_ Tony.

No, Steve says to the someone on the other end of the phone. I have it under control.

* * *

Tony loses all track of time. Rhodey, he asks, but Rhodey is gone.

Steve says, close your eyes, and the wash of lukewarm water feels freezing against his feverish skin. I'm taking care of you, Steve tells him, and brushes a hand over Tony's face, smooths his hair back.

Tony's kneeling-collapsed on the shower tile, in Steve's lap. Steve's cock, fully hard, bobs between them. One of them is naked. What's my temperature, Tony asks, but all he can focus on is Steve's neck, is the way Steve keeps touching him. Stop, Tony says, Stop.

Steve dumps him on the shower floor. Stands up. His leg muscles flex and shine. He drags Tony up by one arm. The heart monitor is beeping somewhere behind him.

Suck, Steve tells him.

Steve, Tony says. Steve puts the tip of his cock to Tony's mouth. His skin feels hot, which can't be correct, they can't both have fevers. Tony's muscles protest, rigid, unused. He reels. Unaccustomed to being upright.

I don't feel good, Tony says, and then Steve is on his tongue, gripping Tony's head like he's going to crush his skull against the tile, but he just crams his entire length into Tony's mouth, against Tony's throat. Tony actually feels him pulling his jaw apart. He slaps one of his hands wetly against Steve's thigh.

Steve starts to fuck his face.

He's dizzy almost immediately. He chokes, because he's not ready, he's not fit for this, and Steve doesn't even let up for a moment, not for recovery, not for Tony's comfort. Tony's head knocks against the tile and it hurts but everything hurts, he just has to trust that Steve will know if he has a concussion, Steve is in control even at his worst - but he's not, he knows that now, sometimes he's not in control, sometimes he's out for blood, sometimes he is unrefined savagery and he's done it to Tony once so what's to say he won't do it again and -

Tony feels pressure behind his teeth, and moans.

You want my knot? Steve asks him. It's yours.

Tony thinks he's crying. His temporomandibular joint feels like it's going to rupture. Like his teeth are going to crack. He has no idea how he's not biting Steve - maybe he is, maybe Steve doesn't care. Steve strokes his throat, drives himself in deeper, and Tony is forced to swallow and swallow and swallow. He doesn't - they've never done this, he's going to break his jaw, he's going to break his jaw and Bruce is so far away and Bruce is maybe dead and Steve is -

Steve pulls out, and Tony sags on his knees. He retches. A welter of bile and Steve's come slides around the drain.

Steve slaps him across the face.

Tony presses one open hand to his stinging cheek.

Steve, he says. Talk to me.

Open your mouth, Steve tells him.

Steve, Tony begs.

Steve hauls him up again, levers one thumb into Tony's pressed-together lips, pries his jaw open. Open your mouth, he snarls. Steve holds him like that, with one hand. Jerks himself off onto Tony's face with the other. Some of it lands in Tony's eye. Steve looks in his mouth, even as Tony is starting to drool. Spits, once. Closes Tony's mouth, puts his hand over it. Swallow, he says, and he feels Tony's throat as his adam's apple bobs over and over.

You're drugged, Tony rasps, when Steve lets him go. You took something. His vision swims as Steve towers over him, shuts off the water. There's come all over his face, in his damp hair.

I'm fixing you, Steve tells him. He draws Tony into his body, sucks at Tony's lower lip. Bites, hard enough to draw blood. Slips two of his fingers through the mess on Tony's face, slides them into Tony's ass.

Steve, Tony tries. You're not yourself. You put yourself in rut. You're hurting me.

I don't care, Steve whispers.

* * *

They've never had a natural rut together, certainly not a chemically-induced super-soldier fugue. 

Steve all but drags Tony into his suite. He rips the sheets off of his long-abandoned furniture, knocks over an easel, puts Tony in the bed that smells like the two of them. Stale. Desperate. 

You need to call someone, Tony tells him, and Steve tells him to _shut up, Tony. Present_. Tony's heart feels loud and too fast. He's burning. He feels his forehead, just to be sure. Steve, he cautions, and Steve is already denning, locking the door, drawing the shades on the window. 

Tony's hand goes to his chest, but the nanotech is gone. He slapped it into Steve's hand. He let it go. 

Something stirs in his hindbrain. He distantly wants to allow Steve to take more. The impulse is buried, but not gone. He wants to be gracious. _Take what you need_. But he is once again, maybe for the last time, in a trap of his own making. Afghanistan v.3-4-5. Utterly alone, whispering into an echo chamber, responsible for generating his own heat, for managing Steve's unbridled rage and shame and guilt. Tony is the only salvation he is ever going to have. He knows it now. 

I'm gonna fuck you until you're better, Steve is saying. 

Friday, call someone, Tony tries, but his voice bounces off the ceiling and Steve smothers his mouth. 

There's no Friday, Steve says. I took her away. You're not getting better because you don't trust me, he hisses. 

I'm asking you to stop, Tony says. You said you would stop, Steve, do you remember that? He brings his hands up to Steve's shining, stubbly face. One of his hands still has the cannula taped to it. It's possible he can negotiate, it's possible Steve isn't in too deep yet. 

Steve can't focus his eyes. His gaze bounces around and it finally settles, it's on Tony's mouth. 

We need this, Steve says. He buries his face in Tony's shoulder, nibbles around his collarbone, bites hard enough to draw blood. Humps Tony's hip until he finally figures out he can rip Tony's towel off. 

You're never gonna forgive yourself when you're sober, Tony spits. The fuck were you thinking. 

Steve reaches for his cock, and Tony kicks. His limbs aren't mapping right, his scant body is wracked with chills, but he fights with all the ferocity he channeled on Titan. He has all his blood. He's taken Steve down before on a thousand mats, in a thousand simulations. He can do it again. He throws the sloppiest roundhouse of his life and – 

Enough, Steve snarls in his Alpha voice, like he really thinks Tony will go down. _Enough._

Steve grabs Tony's wrist midair, slams Tony once, twice against the wall like he's a rag doll. Something pops in Tony's shoulder. He hears his wrist snap, feels his collarbone break under Steve's open palm. 

Steve is just getting inside his body as he passes out. 

* * *

Something that looks like candlelight flickers in Tony's periphery. Something wet is in him, around him. He is so open, so, so wet. He can feel Steve's come on his skin where the air currents hit, Steve's weight on his back. 

Steve. 

Tony jerks, and bites back a scream as pain lights through him. He falls on his broken wrist, and Steve pushes his hips down. A warning. The sheets abrade his oversensitive skin. He tries to push up on his elbows and notices not one, but four Androderm patches on his forearm in a neat little row before his shoulder gives out and he falls hard. 

Steve strokes down his thighs as if he is a skittish mare, over the place on the back of his neck that makes his body crumple without his consent. 

For all of Steve's transgressions, Tony hates him most for using his body against him. Steve knows all of Tony's ugliest failures, all of his most intimate fears. He feels as if he has been scraped inside, out. There is something holding him wide. He squirms despite the bright wash of pain, aches to be fuller. _Steve did this to me_ is swallowed up in _I need him, I want him, knot, please_. 

Steve is in him, he realizes, Steve has been in him for a while, is driving their bodies together with desperate compulsion. Tony's body is such confounding knot of pain that he can barely separate one sensation from the next. He runs through variant after variant of protest. If you loved me you wouldn't. I won't forgive you. You won't forgive you. 

You're going to kill me, is what he tells Steve. 

Steve anchors his hands on Tony's shoulder, and hip, rests his weight, bottoms out, _hard_. 

It leaves Tony gasping. It takes everything he has not to scream. His chest is burning, it is so close to when Steve had his shield in Tony's chest he is certain this must be some sadistic, karmic lesson. He twists his torso around as much as he can, dry-heaves. 

Steve stills, waits. 

Don't be stupid, he says, and Tony feels him bend, feels his plush mouth against the erogenous zone on the back of his neck. 

His body submits. It feels like a fresh hit of morphine. 

Tony decides that he's going to comply. He will let Steve knot his mouth. He will let Steve bite at his gland until he's sobbing. He will let Steve drive his temperature up until he burns alive, he will let Steve take. He will live. 

Steve gathers Tony's arms up behind him, wrenches his arms back. Leans down on one elbow, presses Tony with his full weight. Let me in, Steve says, bending to bite Tony's ear. He licks over Tony's gland, only glancing, and the pain is so sharp that he is certain he's going to vomit. 

I'm _saving_ you, Tony, Steve tells him. 

It feels like being buried. It feels like Malibu, like he's drowning in all that rubble. 

The things I would do for you, Steve is telling him. Do you know how it felt to keep that to myself? Do you know how hard it is to lie across a bond? 

What the fuck did you take, Tony says. He tries to weigh the likelihood he will come out of this alive. He tries to determine if this is his last opportunity to be honest. 

I can live with you hating me, Steve says. He pulls Tony's hips back so he can go deeper, kicks his knees awkwardly apart, tugs at his balls roughly. I can live with that if this fixes you. 

Tony is tethered to the very edge of consciousness. 

You're so fucking selfish, Tony tells him. 

Steve pulls out, and it is agony. He slaps the side of Tony's neck and Tony seizes around him. 

You still respond to me, Steve growls in his ear, and Tony feels a stabbing pain blooming in his pelvis. He thinks Steve is tearing him, he thinks Steve doesn't remember his strength. He opens his mouth in a silent scream against the bed. God, he's going to die, he's going to die.

Steve reaches around under his body, fumbles for Tony's swollen, flaccid cock. 

This is mine, Steve tells him. This is _mine_. I'll fuck you like this every day, Tony, I'll knot you until you understand. Losing you, he says, and he pulls at Tony's length, losing you is unacceptable to me. 

_Please_ , Tony says, and it shouldn't feel so wretched, the bond is still closed, he knows it must be the Androderm and the Alpha sweat and the days of fever and hunger and despair. But Tony is small and he is human and Steve stands among gods and Tony loses to gods every time. 

Please what, Tony. Steve rolls his hips and Tony holds himself taut, unmoving. Like if he is still enough, if he complies just enough to weather this coupling, maybe he can survive. 

Maybe Steve can survive. 

Knot me or get out of me, Tony rasps. 

Steve shoves into him like Tony's body is his own personal accessory. 

The knot feels like it's going to split him. Another small, unquantifiable grief. A brutality Tony thought he would always be spared from. Something trickles down between them, catches in his pubes, trapped between the heat of their bodies. Steve pulses over and over, thrusts deep in aborted little strokes. Positions his mouth the way it was the very first time, just grazes Tony's scar with his teeth. 

Let me in, Tony, Steve tells him. 

Tony wants to tell him he's already lodged. That he wouldn't know where to begin the process of excision. That the problem has always been the two of them, living, dying, entangled. 

* * *

It's dark. The window is open. Steve is brushing something over his forehead, is peeling off the patches on his arm. Maybe not, the hands are unsteady. Very un-Steve-like.   
  
Someone is crying. 

No, Tony says, as boldly as he dares. He pulls away. He moves his legs after what feels like an eternity, frozen beneath Steve's body, subsumed by the ultimate violence of his rut. He shifts his weight and can't help the moan that falls from his mouth. His gland feels raw as an open wound. 

Okay, Steve says softly. Easy, he says. 

The washcloth goes away. Agony floods back momentarily. Tony keens. 

Do you know who you are again, Tony says, through gritted teeth. His head throbs. He's badly dehydrated. He can't summon any inflection at all. He is so deeply tired of this, of this dance, of the two of them. 

Yeah, Steve says, after what seems like an eternity, raw and wanting and lost. 

A quick burn, then. The serum must have brought him out of cycle early. 

The bed dips. Steve smells like the masking cream, neutral, fresh. Hardly the monster who was fucking him hours ago. A rustling, like Steve is getting ready to settle in behind him. A wave of something Tony can no longer discern. 

It hits him, really hits him, as the wave of shea butter and vanilla hits him. The bond isn't salvageable. 

Steve doesn't want it, either. 

Don't fucking touch me, Tony snarls. It comes out as more of a slur. Too much Androderm, too many raging Alpha pheromones on his skin, rubbed into his mucous membranes, dripping into his eyes. How dare he. It threatens to swarm him. Tears prick in his gummy eyes. How _dare_ he. 

Okay, Steve says. His breathing is shallow and uneven. He's crying. You need contact, Tony, he says. Just - just for half an hour. You're - you're crashing. I didn't - 

Tony realizes what he maybe should have realized before the Accords. That Steve has been in the midst of his own collapse. 

I thought if I could fix it, Steve says haltingly, then I could live with myself. 

Tony swallows and swallows and swallows because Steve does not get another single ounce of his pain for self-flagellation. 

I want to stop trying, Tony says. 

Okay, Steve says. His voice ruptures. So it - 

– it didn't _fucking_ work, Tony says. 

Okay, Steve says. He sounds tired. He sounds like he sounded after Insight. Eager to relinquish responsibility. Weary of the game. You still - do you want my skin? You're still not stable, he says, 

He has the decency to sound ashamed. He's not a stupid man. He trips on his failures, circles them endlessly. 

Tony has run through a lifetime of sympathy for Steve. Tony has bled for him and thrown himself bodily in front of him and sold his principles before governing bodies for him. Steve has savaged him for the last time. 

You're not sleeping with me, Tony tells him. Find somewhere else. 

Steve slides out of bed.

I called Helen, Steve tells him. She'll be here in the morning. I gave you more Percocet. I set your shoulder. He pauses. And your wrist. There's an ice pack for your collarbone. I put –

Steve? Tony says. Go fuck yourself. 

Yeah, Steve says. 

He turns at the last minute, because there is no reality in which Steve Rogers can ever really give a thing up. He bends. He presses a kiss to Tony's forehead. 

I love you, Steve whispers against his skin. I know – I'm sorry. Tony. 

I hate you, Tony tells him, and he hopes Steve can feel every fetid inch of it. 

* * *

In the morning, Tony feels almost himself.

Steve must have given him a drip, not just a push. The bright pain of his collarbone is lessened. There's an icepack on the bedside table, there's a note in Steve's hand. Dosages and three little vials. A six-pack of pudding and a little cup of semen defrosting. The thermometer.

 _I made a mistake_ , says the note. _I do love you_. Something crossed out below it. Written smaller: _forgive me._

Tony levers himself up, carefully. The pain shoots up his spine, and the monitor spikes momentarily. He fixes his IV. Looks at the list, changes the bag. Pushes himself pain meds. Takes his temperature - finally, no fever. Reaches behind him to feel at the little wet spot on his gown. 

Hears running water.

The sun is just breaking over the lake. It's just dark enough that he can see soft light seeping out from under the bathroom door.

Steve, he says.

He limps in, barefoot. He carries his IV bag with him, dangles it from one finger. It takes all his strength to open the door.

The curtain around the freestanding bath is drawn. The room smells like tobacco, like clay. The water sound gets louder and he steps barefoot into a cold puddle of water that bounces the scant light of the sunrise around the room.

The heart monitor knows it before he does. He pulls the curtain back with a shaking hand.

Steve's feet are thrown over the lip of the bath, his body too monumental for something as pedestrian as a bathtub. The water is brighter red than Tony expects. Steve's thighs are just under the surface.

Two precise little nicks on each leg, neater than they should be. One last push of the serum. The way Steve goes the extra mile. The way he always knows exactly how much force to exert.

Tony's heart shutters. He closes Steve's eyes, closes the tap. Sits on the floor, drawing a towel around his shoulders. Touches the scar on his throat, still swollen, still raw.  
  
Waits for a miracle.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you suffered some. If you felt a feeling, leave me a comment!
> 
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